176 - We Need to Talk About Kevin

    Told in both the present, and flashbacks, the mother of a cruel and violent child wonders about both her relationship with him, as well as her responsibility.
    I don't know if I can have enough to say about this movie, because it avoids taking any clear positions.  In some instances, it's easy to think that the mother isn't being strict enough, and sometimes, she seems to be too mean.  Kevin isn't a good child.  He's outwardly hostile, in particular, to his mother.  To everyone else, he's sullen, but not actually bad.
    I think I understand what Kevin is doing.  He puts on a certain facade with most people.  Despite his cruelty to his mother, he does it mostly because he's comfortable doing it.  He's not having to hide himself.
    There is one scene where we see a glimpse of why Kevin is the way he is.  He's out playing miniature golf with his mother, and his mother says something fairly cruel about fat people.  Kevin points out that she's fairly harsh.  He also points out that it's where he got it from.
    The movie culminates (sort of, it's flashed back to throughout the movie) in a Columbine-like scenario.  Except that he's shooting people in the gym with arrows.  While we saw this coming, there's one more reveal.  After his mother goes home at the end of the day, she finds that both her husband and her daughter have been shot by her son.  Their bodies are out in the backyard, arrows still sticking out of them.
    While I had been curious about what happened to those characters, I assumed that a divorce had happened.  This is a much darker twist.
    It's silly to think that we can understand exactly what motivates killers.  Especially ones like Kevin, who have no primary motivation.  He spells this out on more than one occasion.  "The point is that there is no point."

    I'm not sure I could recommend this to anyone who has children.  Or anyone who is thinking of having them.